YIVO INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH PRESENTS Annie Gosfield Portrait Concert CONCERT YIVO Institute for Jewish Research · 15 West 16th Street, NYC May 4, 2017 · 7:00pm WITH SUPPORT FROM PROGRAM ORDER Introduction Alex Weiser, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Tshastushki: Lomir zikh tsekushn (Let’s Kiss Each Other) (1928) Playback of Archival Recording Music by Alexander Olshanetsky, Words by William Siegel Compositions Composed by Annie Gosfield: The Dybbuk on Second Avenue (2015)** Piano Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites (2003) Violin and Electronics Number Six Goerck Street (2017)* Mezzo Soprano and Violin Second Avenue Junkman (1993) Keyboard, Guitar, and Percussion Post Concert Discussion with Annie Gosfield and Alex Weiser *World Premiere **New York Premiere Performances from: Kathleen Supové, Piano Duo Cortana Ari Streisfeld, Violin Rachel Calloway, Mezzo Soprano Annie Gosfield, Keyboard Roger Kleier, Guitar Brian Chase, Percussion 1 PROGRAM NOTES Tshastushki: Lomir zikh tsekushn (Let’s Kiss Each Other) [Archival recording] Tshastushki: Lomir zikh tsekushn (Let’s Kiss Each Other) is a song from the 1928 Yiddish Theater Operetta Goldene Teg (Golden Days) with words by William Siegel and music by Alexander Olshanetsky. This recording is a part of YIVO’s 78rpm disc collection in its Sound Archive and features Belarus born Yiddish theater star Aaron Lebedeff under the baton of the composer himself. The Dybbuk on Second Avenue (2015, 10 minutes, for piano) Commissioned by Piano Spheres The Dybbuk on Second Avenue was inspired by the The Yiddish Art Theatre, which opened in 1926 on Twelfth Street and Second Avenue. I see the theater out my window every day, and think of my grandfather, an immigrant from Latvia, who frequented the venue when Second Av- enue was known as “The Jewish Rialto.” The piece reflects the shifting influences that effected the theater over the years: its checkered history ranges from performances of Yiddish theater to burlesque, from Chekhov to William Burroughs. Although Yiddish Theater thrived, the theater itself changed hands frequently (at one point it was owned by Molly Picon, one of the biggest stars of the Yiddish theater). The Dybbuk on Second Avenue borrows some fragments from a record- ing that I found in YIVO’s archive called Tshastushki: Lomir zikh tsekushn (Let’s Kiss Each Other), a Yiddish/Russian song from the Yiddish 1928 theater production Goldene teg (Golden Days). Like the theater itself, the melodies and harmonies often change hands, moving from treble to bass, colliding, diverging, and overlapping as the composition devel- ops. Repeating elements in the architecture of the theater are echoed by repeated elements in the music. Surface noise, scratches, and other artifacts from the original 78 inspired the relentless repeats of a needle stuck in a groove. The theater’s burlesque history inspired a hint of bump and grind, and the drag cabaret that was housed in the basement lends some swagger and swing to its step. Second Avenue was never a stranger to street noise and sirens, and occasionally the Doppler effect is invoked by rising and descending intervals. In Jewish folklore a dybbuk is an evil spirit that enters into a living person, 2 and represents a separate and alien personality. “The Dybbuk” is the name of a classic play (and later film) of the Yiddish theater. In the case of this piece, the not-so-evil lively spirit of the Yiddish Theater reenters a building that has become dislocated from its roots and reminds us all of the wildly mixed history of Downtown New York. Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites (2003, 8 minutes, for violin and electronics) Commissioned by George Kentros Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites was developed with George Ken- tros, a violinist in Stockholm who commissioned me to write a piece for “violin and something.” While researching the piece, I learned how the the Soviets captivated the world by launching Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957. People all over the globe watched a tiny smudge drift across the horizon, and set up bulky radio equipment in order to listen with rapt attention to the abstract bleeps, blips, and static that the satellite broadcast. The piece is scored for violin, accompanied by recordings of satellites, shortwaves and radio transmissions, and is inspired by the image of a listener lost in a night sky littered with satellite noise. The static, sputter and concealed melodies of these transmissions are echoed by the violin, which drifts between extended techniques and traditional writing for the instrument. Like a radio that is gradually losing and gaining reception, the music shifts between these two worlds, hovering between notes and noise, and ultimately drifts into faraway static. I wanted to include Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites in tonight’s program because it references the immigrant experience in its own way; it is inspired by the shift between two worlds, and the fascination of losing oneself in an unfamiliar landscape, only to find a unique identity in an alien land. Number Six Goerck Street (2017, 10 minutes, for mezzo-soprano and violin) Commissioned by the YIVO Institute with support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs THANKS TO ALEX WEISER AND EDDY PORTNOY Number Six Goerck Street is about a 1905 rent strike by immigrants in the Lower East Side. It is inspired by the reports of the tenants’ humor and resourcefulness, and how they organized after their landlord imposed a fifty-cent tax on each baby. The text is drawn from several articles about the rent strike, and the mothers’ desperate (but poetic) pleas to the court. It was composed for Duo Cortona, to make use of Rachel Calloway’s beautiful voice and irrepressible spirit, coupled with Ari Streis- feld’s great command of extended violin techniques, and his ability to 3 spin music out of unusual timbres. The music quotes Bernard Herrmann, Aaron Lebedeff, Lieber and Stoller, and a letter to Theodore Roosevelt from 13-year-old resident Abe Zabriskie. I snuck in a little family history, naming “the twin babies, Lena and Abie” after my own grandmother and her brother, who arrived in America as immigrant children in 1904. I researched the piece at YIVO, not always sure what I was looking for, but enjoying every minute of it. As a long time resident of the “Upper West Lower East Side” I was particularly interested in the neighborhood I shared with my ancestors, and my grandparents’ generation of immi- grants. In my research, Irving Howe led me to “Gangs of New York” which led me to Little Augie, an infamous Jewish gangster who was shot dead in front of the future site of one my favorite defunct hangouts, Tonic. That led me to a reference to “The Goerck Street Boys” in an article that named the toughs who showed up to Little Augie’s funeral, to view his body in a resplendent cherry red coffin. Goerck Street? I never heard of it, but I got curious. Apparently it existed from around 1811 to 1933 and was reputed to be one of the roughest streets in all of Manhattan. The Baruch houses now stand on the site, South of Houston and just West of the East River. Thomas Edison opened the Edison Machine Works on Goerck St. in 1881, and employed Nikola Tesla in 1884. I found references to murders, robberies, gangs, saloons, fires, and little children buying beer, as well as the “baby tax” charged to the tenants of no. 6 Goerck Street. With our new administration’s hostility towards immigrants, my research became more focused on New York’s new residents, and how they organized as they became such a critical part of the city. I found this story of humor and activism an inspiration, even if they did use “a dead cat brought in from the street.” I unearthed so much wonderful material this project could have become a song cycle – and I hope one day it does. TEXT Elias Russ, Landlord Of number six Goerck St Imposed a tax for every East Side baby Of fifty cents extra per head The ferryboat’s rumble The bottle fights raging One hundred and fifty Eastside kids raised in A tenement where tenants refused to pay A baby tax They stormed the courts With an army of babes Hanging from mothers’ skirts Hanging from mothers’ skirts 4 Demanding Magistrate Leon Sanders How can we be fruitful and multiply, multiply? How can we replenish the tenement With babes heaven sent? Paying half a dollar a head? Tell us what is it you would do? Should I turn my first born Isaac, into the street? Stab Rachael? Strangle Moses? Shoot Rebecca? Drown Mirah, -Mirah! Poison Nathan? Throw Lizzie from the roof, from the roof? Hug the twin babies Lena and Abie Until they take their last breath? In the halls and the stairways We organized Withholding our rent And gathering weapons We organized Tubs of water poised on the railing Scuttles stashed in convenient corners Filled with vegetable ammunition We organized Rotten tomatoes, Sprouted potatoes And a dead cat brought in from the street. One of the older boys in his last year at school thought of President Theo- dore Roosevelt, and wrote and mailed the following letter to him: Honored Sir, Thirty families with one hundred and fifty children live at 6 Goerck Street. Our landlord is trying to drive us out because there are so many children in each family. We have been very happy with new babies coming every once in a while and now it is all desolation. Please send those Rough Rid- ers and Cowboys to help us. Respectfully, Abe Zabriski (13 years old) Six floors of uproar With all the babes The joy of destruction was so universal Among the children It seemed only fair to charge by their number.